GameDay: Anaheim @ Detroit

The hockey god effect: Wings are on an 18 home game win streak. Longest in their 84 year history. Ducks are playing their own version of the Little Train That Could, going 11-2-2 in the past 15 home and away. This game has all the makings of particle acceleration in a super collider. Wings are favored it the outcome is determined by a post, crossbar or stupid penalty. Hiller can steal a game anytime, anywhere. Equipment manager Doug Shearer might have a magic something to sprinkle on our Ducks sticks.

The Skinny: Each team has plenty of offensive weapons. The Red Wings also have that blue line anchored by the ageless Nik Lindstrom. Unless Hillsy stands on his ear our best shot against the current Prince of Wales Trophy leader is to goad them into a sloppy wide open shootout.

This is another of those measuring stick games. An underachiever turned hot against a Stanley Cup contender firing up all its burners. Drop the puck!

The Standings: Dallas is in Buffalo for a tilt with the Sabres. Colorado hosts Carolina. Los Angeles, Minnesota, Calgary and Phoenix are idle. On paper it looks like we give ground tonight. Still, this why they play the games.

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How’s this for CYA, “Unless Hillsy stands on his ear our best shot against the current Prince of Wales Trophy leader is to goad them into a sloppy wide open shootout.” Can I have it both ways, lol. Fact is I really thought this was going to a wide open, high scoring affair.
These teams have so much firepower.

Looks like tight checking playoff hockey is here for the duration. It was far and away our Ducks best played game this season. We gained a point on the idle 8th place Phoenix Coyotes. We stayed even with Dallas who lost to Buffalo in a SO.

‘Stache played in his 399th NHL game tonight. One more and Parros qualifies for the pension. Consider, every player entering the NHL at the Entry Draft gets an NHL contract. Only about 5% of them get a second NHL contract. How many of those play 400 NHL games? 1% maybe? Just putting Stache’ accomplishment in perspective.

You said it, bc, great game, by both teams. Strong and impressive performance by the Ducks against the elite team. We forced Detroit into taking many penalties. But unfortunately, our PP was pathetic. In my opinion, some of the penalties on our side were results of Detroit’s embellishment and diving, and referees gladly compensated.
The Wings are very well coached team, I have extremely high opinion of Mike Babcock and the management. They play their system superbly, and they have a lot of weapons. So it’s a credit to us, that for most of the game we were not a worse team.
So now let’s focus on the negatives: Our big guns became toy peashooter. Very often confused, and clueless. It’s extremely irritating to see Getzlaf to lose one face-off after another, untill our PP expires. Its frustrating to watch Getz so many times out of position.
And another observation: Detroit guarded the blue line really well, and we could not carry the puck. And when we dumped it we did not have speed to get to it. Drew Miller has 11 goals this season (I mention this only because I was criticizing RC and our GM for poor development of players).

Amazing that Drew Miller wasn’t good enough for us but is good enough for a Stanley Cup contender. You’re spot on cz the difference is a coach who knows how to use his players.

Got an add on to your negatives. Opportunities were missed for making one pass too many. Gabby needs to teach ’em the Gordie Howe rule, “You shoot when you have the best chance to score. You pass when your teammate has the best chance to score.” IE., Cogs giving up the better scoring chance to dish off to Bobby Ryan is understandable. He’s showing respect for the natural scorer. Gabby calls those dishes and short passes “shares.” Nice warm fuzzy kinda buzzword. Sometime though players have to take it on themselves. When you have the best chance, it doesn’t matter WHO else is out there, YOU take the shot. Cogs to Ryan is the example that stands out for me. There were at least half a dozen more.

Of late, Ryan Getzlaf has been more effective without the puck than he has been with it.

On the positive side, that was the team effort we’ve been looking for all year. We forced the Wings to bring their ‘A’ game and as cz notes, we dominated significant chunks of clock. We didn’t win the point but our Ducks did make a point.

Very interesting game to watch. I think the Ducks outplayed them for a good portion of the game but could not capitalize. For one, even though he has a great shoot, I do not like Getz on the blue line during PP. Turnovers in number were down. I guess a point is about as good as I expected, but when Cam had that break away I was on my feet. One thing about the last game, I did not like the way the guys keep passing the puck backwards or behind the net when they are pressured in their own zone. This cost us turnovers…..get the puck out of the zone if in trouble…..take the icing.

Hey tearingitup, a guy tweeted (((dies))) when Cam missed. One thing about icing is many teams, including our Ducks, try but often lanes are clogged with sticks and bodies and you just can’t the biscuit out of the zone.
Turnover risk increases with the length of the pass. We need to be more mindful about puck support.

One reason the Wings are so good is that they can adjust to any strategy, they can change the tactics form full scale attack to stay home defense, they can play neutral zone trap, tight blue line defense or left-wing lock with the same ease. Each and every individual on their team knows his role and his tasks. The way the Ducks played them deserves a lot of credit.